Several readers of this blog have pointed me to an article in the conservative journal First Things; the article (a review of a book by the evangelical scholar Craig Blomberg) was written by Louis Markos, an English professor at Houston Baptist University. The title is called “Ehrman Errant.” I must say, that did not sound like a promising beginning.
I had never heard of Louis Markos before – had certainly never met him, talked with him about myself or my life, shared with him my views of important topics, spent time to see how he ticked and to let him see how I do. I don’t know the man, and he doesn’t me. And so it was with some considerable surprise that I read the beginning of his article.
“I feel great pity for Bart Ehrman.”
So, from someone I don’t know, that’s a bit of a shocker. I can understand why a friend of mine might feel some (but not great?) pity for me at some points of my life – when I had such difficulty, for years, finding a teaching position even though I had a PhD from a very fine program; when my father died at the sad young age of 65; when I went through a divorce and was forced, then, not to see my kids grow up every day. There have been bad times in my life, and my friends grieved with me through them.
But that’s not why Dr. Markos feels “great pity” (not some pity – but great pity). No, he feels great pity for me because when I was a fundamentalist I was the wrong kind of fundamentalist; if I had been the right kind of fundamentalist I never would have left fundamentalism: the kinds of things that I found to be highly problematic about fundamentalism are problematic only for the kind of fundamentalist that I was. And if I had remained the right kind of fundamentalist, I would still hold to the truth, and my life would be fantastic and not to be pitied — as opposed to the life I live now which is, evidently, greatly to be pitied.
I really can’t help but think that if Dr. Markos knew anything at all about my life, he wouldn’t consider pity, great or small, to be the most obvious or appropriate response to it. My life is flat-out fantastic, in every respect. There are hard times, and sad times, and grievous times (in this past few months, e.g.), but my life is great and I relish it. I hope Dr. Markos’s life is as good as mine. But if he spends his time pitying people he’s never met, whose lives he doesn’t know, then I wonder what kind of life he actually has. On the other hand, frankly, I don’t wonder too much, since I tend not to pity people I know nothing about.
In any event, Dr. Markos goes on to explain the source of his great pity for my pathetic life:
It appears that the kind of fundamentalism in which the Christian believer [Ehrman] turned biblical debunker was raised did not prepare him for the challenges he would face in college. He was taught, rightly, that there are no contradictions in the Bible, but he was trained, quite falsely, to interpret the non-contradictory nature of the Bible in modern, scientific, post-Enlightenment terms. That is to say, he was encouraged to test the truth of the Bible against a verification system that has only existed for some 250 years.
I find this statement so puzzling on so many levels that I don’t know where to start. His basic point is that we can’t judge the Bible by modern forms of thinking, logic, evidence, modes of verification, scientific knowledge, and so on, but by the intellectual terms that were available before the Enlightenment. That is, we should not read the Bible as intelligent modern people but as ignorant pre-modern people. And if we do that, we won’t have any problems with it, and we’ll see that in fact there are no contradictions (from the perspective of ignorant pre-modern people). So, I am to be “greatly pitied” because I never realized that the most valid approach to the Bible is that of ignorant pre-Enlightenment people.
Right. OK, so as I said. Where to start?
First off, let me state that when Dr. Markos indicates that I was raised in the kind of Fundamentalism that insisted on modern modes of analysis and verification and that this did not prepare me for college, he shows that he doesn’t know the first thing about my life. The fundamentalism I acquired was what I acquired precisely in college (Moody Bible Institute). (Before that I was an avid Episcopalian and presumably, then, much more to be pitied!) My kind of fundamentalism was one that says there are no mistakes in the Bible of any kind, doctrinally, ethically, historically, scientifically. There are no absolute contradictions (even though there may be places that look like contradictions: these can be reconciled). There are no scientific errors (The world really was created in six 24-hour days, with evenings and mornings; Adam and Eve really were the first human beings). There are no historical mistakes (Quirinius really was the governor of Syria when Herod was King of Judea). Everything the Bible affirms to be true is true. This was what I learned precisely *in* college. Strikingly, it’s the kind of fundamentalism that Dr. Markos himself appears to embrace, as I’ll explain in a later post.
Second, let me say that the clear implication that Dr. Markos makes – that I don’t realize that there are differences between modern modes of verification and ancient modes – is ludicrous. I spend my entire career teaching students that modern forms of rationality (including the kind Dr. Markos subscribes to, I might add), would not have been possible prior to the Enlightenment, and that the ancient world saw things quite differently. For ancient readers, it would have been no scientific problem for God to make the “sun stand still” in the book of Joshua so that the Israelites could continue the slaughter of their enemies (they would have no moral problem with the passage either. Damn Canaanites: they deserved to be slaughtered! They weren’t us!). Modern scientists might wonder how that could happen since (a) it is the earth that is rotating, not the sun moving, and b) stopping the earth from rotating for a long afternoon would have destroyed the planet. Ancient people didn’t have that problem.
Third, I should say that it does indeed seem appropriate to me to study the Bible not only to see what the ancients would have made of it or to see what they would have found problematic about it, but also to see what we moderns can make of it and find problematic in it. If we want to know whether it is possible for the “sun to stand still” – do we want to ask that as ancient people as modern scientists? Do we want to adopt ancient views of things because those were the views of the Bible and the times of the Bible? Let’s think about it for a second. Suppose you have a hammering toothache. Since you want to live and think like they did in biblical times, do you want to implement the solution for your toothache that they had in ancient times? Or to you prefer to go to a modern dentist who has, for example, a handy supply of xylocaine?
My point: of *course* biblical authors had different ways of evaluating truth claims and of accepting historical, geographical, scientific views than we do today. Am I really to be pitied (greatly!) for thinking that modern people should think like modern people? Of course we should work to see how ancient people read and understood their texts – that’s my day job, it’s what I do all the time. But to say that since ancient people didn’t see problems in the stories they told (e.g., that there was a flood that covered the entire world killing everything on it; or that an angel of death destroyed on one night all the firstborn children in all of Egypt; or that someone made an iron axehead float on the water – pick your passage) we shouldn’t see those problem either is a case of naivete of the worst sort.
I’ll say more about Dr. Markos’s little article in subsequent posts, but I’m planning to space them out a bit. I’ll probably do the next one next weekend.
This is one of your best posts. His argument is a variation of Ken Ham’s argument about how modern science doesn’t apply to test the things asserted in the Bible because we can’t know if modern scientific techniques were valid then (e.g., radiometric dating). It is nonsense, as is Ham’s position.
jsullivan,
The association of Ken Ham with science is like the association of Trofim Lysenko with science. Because it is not clear what Markos meant by his vague comment “he was encouraged to test the truth of the Bible against a verification system that has only existed for some 250 years,” I’ll withhold placing him in the same category as Ken Ham and his anti-science loons, who don’t like science when it discredits their beliefs. I’m not sure whether Markos really appreciates the thrust of his own comment, which seems to accuse Dr. Ehrman of too much hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Shame on you, Dr. Ehrman, for being too reasonable!
Those defending Mr. Markos in the comments section below that article is just as entertaining as the article itself.
Dr. Ehrman,
Thank you for sharing all this with us. I find it most interesting to get a glimpse into your life and think you are most generous to allow us that.
Judy
When is the next time your coming to Denver Bart?
I have no plans to in the near future.
Fundamentalist habits of thought are a disaster no matter the topic. By fundamentalist I mean anyone who has a doctrinaire, ideological and blinkered view on a subject at hand and is hence oblivious to nuance, thought or reflection. The answers are at hand through a given prism be it liberalism, conservativism, libertarianism, free market capitalism, Marxism, Christianity or Islamism and there is no need to consider any train of thought or evidence that might be at odds with one’s world view.
It is a comfortable place, but anyone who lives in the real world it is absurd.
After much personal contemplation over many years, my position is that of an agnostic. The evidence at hand makes virtually any written religion as infallible and all seeing as a constitution. Indeed, anything involving humans is almost certain to be untidy and messy. Atheism also lacks evidence, it seems to me. We just don’t know. But if there is a deity, it certainly cannot be the one described in any religious text.
I guess I’ll have to dig out the article and see what it might say. I do understand the frustration of getting lectured at from afar. FYI – Louis Markos did a Great Courses lecture series on “The Life and Writings of CS Lewis”.
Thanks so much for sharing this with us. I look forward to your subsequent posts on this topic. I am often stunned by how some people can “spin” the evidence no matter what.
I know you don’t want to write a lot of personal stuff on this website, but when you do, I always find it to be quite helpful and so similar to my own, somewhat less scholarly, search.
The article by Dr. Markos really upset me. Please don’t get discouraged with such criticisms as those from Dr. Markos. I spent decades asking questions before I finally read one of your books and then finally I found an author who understands my questions and writes about them clearly. Keep going….
LOUIS MARKOS
Louis Markos is Professor in English & Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University where he holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities.
Education
BA in English and History from Colgate University (Hamilton, NY)
MA and PhD in English from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI)
Courses Taught
Ancient Greece and Rome (for the Honors College)
Victorian Poetry and Prose
Seventeenth-Century Poetry and Prose
C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien
Mythology
Epic
Film (classics, Hitchcock, Capra, Hollywood Studios, musicals, etc.)
Teaching Focus
While at the University of Michigan, he specialized in British Romantic Poetry (his dissertation was on Wordsworth), Literary Theory, and the Classics.
So, what you are dealing with is an English Professor with no graduate training in critical historical investigation, biblical history or theology. It appears he strays into modern Christian apologetics and explaining fundamentalist theology in his writings – his books include
Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C. S. Lewis;
Apologetics for the 21st Century;
From Achilles to Christ;
On the Shoulders of Hobbits;
Heaven and Hell: Visions of the Afterlife in the Western Poetic Traditiion
Sounds like he thinks taking you on (indirectly of course, as cowards usually do) will give him “Biblical Cred” among his fundamentalist cronies. Too bad he lacks the education or background to do so with any authority.
I wonder how you are able to suffer such fools so lightly.
If memory serves, I recall your writing about how early church fathers like Irenaeus weren’t ignorant of contradictions between the gospels, didn’t seem to be especially troubled by them, and yet maintained a very exalted view of them. I don’t think you necessarily wrote those three points down in one place, but those are impressions I’ve taken away from reading a lot of your books. This leads me to think that there must have been some other criteria by which these ancients saw truth in them; criteria that I can’t quite wrap my modern head around.
On one hand, their approach doesn’t seem to fit a modern, liberal protestant understanding that seems only concerned for preserving some kernel of ethical or spiritual truth to which notions of historicity are irrelevant. But on the other hand, I don’t read about them doing the kinds of logical gymnastics required to smooth over the historical contradictions. How did they manage to know so much, believe so much, yet stay so sanguine about contradictions?
Since it seems like this question might require a long answer, feel free to just point me in the direction of a not-too-technical book or chapter of a book if it’s easier. I do admire how much time you must take answering questions.
Fascinating Mark
You’ve managed to express my feeling exactly. It seems to me that cultures remote from our own experienced ideas and language in ways we “moderns” can’t really access. This is one of the areas I think Karen Armstrong has explored well even through I think her writings employ a double standard when comparing world religions in the contemporary world. Contemporary culture makes it very difficult for Westerners to read “sacred” works without treating them as flat literal instruction manuals containing consistent programmes of action or thought. Thus fundamentalism substitutes of nuanced poetic readings.
I don’t think someone whose teaching forte centers on C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien can be taken too seriously despite posting calculating essay titles. Do you?
Well, he’s certainly not trained in biblical studies!
To be pitied by the right people is a compliment (altho I sometimes wish they would compliment me in a more complimentary way!).
Hello Bart,
I bet Prof. Markos goes to a dentist for his toothaches, as do the great majority of fundamentalists. I find it fascinating, as well as somewhat disturbing, fundamentalists can compartmentalize the way they do. From what you shared, Prof. Markos at least does not believe you are also morally suspect–or perhaps he is just doesn’t say so. Common responses from some believers of church I left are I left because
I wanted to sin. Hey, I like a good cup of coffee and better sex. If that’s sin, well, I’m a sinner.
I was offended by some minor affront. Actually, I was offended by white-washed history, repugnant social policies, and nonsensical beliefs.
I really don’t understand. On the contrary, it was understanding that my religious beliefs didn’t square well with a modern understanding of reality that got me out. I was told I thought too much and knew too much to belong. I agree.
One thing about English professors, having earned a undergraduate degree in English myself: Many of them believe they can comment knowledgeably on anything and sometimes dabble in amateur psychoanalysis.
…turned biblical debunker? I find you an “explainer” rather than a debunker. Or debunker of flawed literalist readings of the Bible, maybe.
Bart, I wouldn’t give this idiot the time of day. People like him are just fearful and lash out at anyone who threatens them. It’s like having a discussion with a two year old when he/she is having a tantrum. I will tell you this, you have helped me immensely. I have put you in the very exalted category along with Richard Dawkins, and my hero Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris. Bart, you are in good company in my book.
Christopher said something like religion was having its last dying gasp. Good riddance when it is gone and replaced by common sense, science, and enough bravery to face the human condition without superstition.
Maybe someday psychologists will find the answer to why humans cling to religion when there is an entire universe to enjoy. Until then, carry on because the world need you.
Dr. Ehrman, maybe you should take this article as a back handed complement. To paraphrase Shakespeare,
“He doth protest too much, methinks.”
If he did not think your books might cause his kind of fundamentalists to “Doubt”, he wouldn’t waste his ink on you
I was actually invited by Markos to attend some of his lectures at HBU’s honors college one time. Afterwards, he was kind enough to discuss biblical scholarship (one of my primary interests) with me. I brought you up and told him about how you had really changed and expanded many of my perspectives. The only thing he said in reply was, “Man, I wouldn’t want to be that guy on judgement day.” Anyways, I did my best to explain to him that regardless of one’s worldview, one can still be a fantastic, honest religious scholar. I’m not really sure if he got the message or not…
Good grief. Not that he’s judgmental or anything. But, really. Judge not lest ye be judged!
That statement by Markos confirms what I’d been guessing: that he “pities” you because he thinks you, and everyone who’s rejected what he perceives as the “truth,” are destined for eternal damnation. Maybe we should pity him, for all he’s missing as he goes through life with such a narrow mind…
It is interesting that Papal Infallibility in the Catholic Church became dogma in 1870 (not that it was created then, but it was codified and defined at that time), followed within a few decades by the Protestant idea of Biblical Inerrancy. I read somewhere that both of these movements may have reflected (ironically) the increasingly scientific approaches they were responding to. Attempts to shore up the authority of the Pope and the Bible were actually shaped by the Enlightenment itself. Because of the Enlightenment, people were asking questions that had never been asked before (see Bart’s comments above regarding the Sun standing still, for example).
Bart, I find it odd that Dr. Markos would challenge your “brand” of fundamentalism. Whether Moody Bible Institute, where you attended, or Baptist Bible College of PA or Grace Theological Seminary, where I attended, I’m sure we were taught the same approach to inerrancy. I learned how to defend inerrancy and “Biblical Creationism” from John C. Whitcomb himself. In my years as a fundamentalist, I didn’t see very much variation in the fundamentalist understanding of inerrancy. It has now been more than 30 years since I considered myself a fundamentalist, so it is possible that the current situation has changed. My limited exposure to fundamentalists today, however, makes me think it has not.
I have often wondered whether protestant views on inerrancy of the Bible were developed to fill the “authority” void in Protestant theologies left by the “kicking out” the Pope.
Well, Bart, I really had a good laugh reading this latest post. You may recall that I was a former evangelical Christian, and that I have been engaged in a decades-long debate with a Christian friend of mine. He has remained a believer for over 40 years, and no amount of reasoning that I have presented has swayed him from his faith. As you pointed out, such efforts are generally ineffective, and have only served to reinforce his defences. I have told my friend that if there is a God , it is not the Judeo-Christian version. To me, the divine is something beyond our comprehension and certainly not a super human like being with attributes similar to our own, as depicted in Scripture. So, I have come to a place of “I don’t know.” I am learning to live in the mystery of it all. My friend finds this completely unsatisfactory, and often laments my looking for “the unknown God.” Just this morning, he sent me an email that ended with this statement: “The unknown god David doesn’t exist…….I hope you will come to your senses sooner rather than later. I feel very sorry for you that you are not at peace with yourself.” He finds uncertainty as it pertains to God and ultimate reality to be intolerable, and so feels sorry for, or pities, people like me (and you LOL). So, the timing of your post here was rather, shall we say, timely? I may forward the post to him, even thought he despises all things Ehrman LOL.
“I have told my friend that if there is a God , it is not the Judeo-Christian version. To me, the divine is something beyond our comprehension and certainly not a super human like being with attributes similar to our own, as depicted in Scripture.”
Why wouldn’t he be just like one of us?
This question is “off” in so many ways, it’s hard to know where to begin. Just one comment: If you were to take all the time that has passed since the universe began (about 14 billion years ago according to Science), and thought of it in terms of an hour on a clock, then we humans arrived on the scene in the last few seconds. And you think it’s all about us? Even the scripture says “God is not a human, that he should lie.” (numbers 23:19). Or “God is a spirit..” (John 4:24). Let’s face it, throughout history, most of the worlds religions depicted their Gods as being human-like, whether it be Zeus, Apollo, Vishnu or Jehovah. It could just as easily be asked, “Why wouldn’t he be just like….well…..just about anything your imagination can conjure up. He/it could not possibly be “like one of us” and still be omniscient, omnipotent and, most important, omnipresent.
Ha, i suppose one of the pitfalls of being a fairly well known author and a former fundamentalist Christian is that you are an obvious target for mud to be slung at. When I first came across this blog site I was a little taken aback that If i was to subscribe, it would cost me money.. Oh, it’s like that is it.. Ehrman wants our cash i thought ..Typical!. But then reading on, i found that all the money was going to good causes and the poor. My initial misjudgment was totally wrong. Also, i have to say, I’ve only been on this site a few weeks, and like a lot of people, i have lots of questions which I’ve struggled with all my life concerning biblical issues which to me, made no sense. For a number of years now I’ve tried to get answers from priests, pastors and anyone with “Christian ideals”, but my questions have fallen on deaf ears, or at the very least, I’ve had very glib answers followed by silence. In the past 2 weeks you’ve been gracious enough to reply to my questions, which I’d never thought I’d receive due to your busy work schedule. Thanks Bart.
Yet another fundamentalist desperately trying to justify his own irrationality …
“Modern scientists might wonder how that could happen since (a) it is the earth moving around the sun, not vice versa and (b) stopping the earth from moving around the sun for a long afternoon would have destroyed the earth.”
No need to stop the earth from moving around the sun–that, combined with the orientation of the earth on its axis, would merely stop the cycle of seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Rather, modern scientists would wonder how that could happen since the earth is rotating on its axis and the sun is already relatively stationary.
It appears that the Moody Bible Institute needs to update their scientific curriculum a bit. I also wonder if the science classes that student athletes at the University of North Carolina take are any better. 😉
Ha!! That’s good. That’ll teach me to dash off these posts! How embarassing. I’ve made the revolutionary (or rather, rotational) alteration in thye post….
It’s kind of sad to realize you were the wrong kind of fundamentalist and were fooled by modern historical methods. Reading the replies to your posts, I think a lot of your blog followers including myself now know we were the just the wrong kind. I prefer Shelby Spong’s “Church Alumni Association.” I don’t know if he invented it or that’s just where I read it first.
–
On the other hand I don’t think Louis Markos wants to go down the path of modern historical methods being recent compared to the ancient mythologies since the Protestant Reformation is also recent as a 16th century phenomenon. So while the historical criticism of the NT is only about 250 years old, Protestant religions are no more than 500 years old compared to Christianity which is about 2000 years old and shamanism which is app. 100,000 years old.
WOW! I Cant believe that dude said that! So let me get this straight. God wrote a book (which is about the most inefficient way for God to reveal himself) that cannot stand up to modern critical thought / scrutiny!!?? Really?? One would think if God wrote a book it would be able to be analyzed critically at any point in time by any means available. I mean…he created the Universe, physics, string theory, etc but wasn’t able to make his word analyzable (?) by modern methods? Does that guy realize what he just said? His argument would only convince me even more that the Bible was written by man…not by God. Seriously! Who is more likely to create a written work that cannot be scrutinized by modern methods…..man?…..or God? Think about it!
The core of Dr Markos’s comments cause me to be reminded of some comments I encountered during my college years in the late 1960s(an era of social upheveal and questioning of accepted idea) I had an automobile problem which required a tow truck and a 30 min ride with the tow driver in which the driver and I had quite a conversation. At the time I was attending a particularlly good nearby college that was embracing the questioning. The driver advised me to be careful so that I did not become too smart for my own good. He told me that there were many things that should never be questioned, and that the professors might lead me astray
One of the most important things I learned was that reason is on of our most important gifts, Question everything and always ask WHY
I continue to think about the article written by Dr. Markos. I just can’t imagine that with all of the contradictions in the Gospel accounts of the genealogy of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, the trial of Jesus, the empty tomb events, etc. that anyone could possibly ignore this overwhelming evidence and contend that all of these contradictions are “apparent” and can be reconciled. What an incredible and unfortunate conclusion. Unfortunate because it means that no one who really struggles with these contradictions is going to take those having such a view seriously about anything else.
Umm, are you putting us on Professor Ehrman? Your self-proclaimed religious psychology critic concerning the Greek Christian Bible is a Dr. “Mark”(os) who is an expert in English?
By the way, perhaps you are the one who should feel pity for Dr. Mark. Early after next Shabbat Rabbi Tovia Singer will be rising to Houston Baptist University to engage Craig Evans in a debate regarding The Jewish Messiah. It’s bad enough that while you are an expert in Biblical Greek, Dr. Mark does not know Greek. The Greek Christian Bible though claims to be based on Biblical Hebrew and likewise Rabbi Singer is an expert in Biblical Hebrew while Craig Evans dose not know Hebrew.
Craig Evans certainly knows Hebrew! Sounds like it should be an interesting debate, in any event.
“I went through a divorce and was forced, then, not to see my kids grow up every day.” Dr Bart
I can’t imagine the pain
Many people have had it much worse. (Even with divorce…)
I’ve seen you bring up floating axe heads and stationary stars before, and I wonder-You aren’t really still surprised when someone who sees Yahweh as the “magic sky daddy” doesn’t question scientifically impossible side effects of the violations of nature he himself causes in their myths, are you? It would seem natural to make subsequent excuses for ridiculous claims once you had commited to them, wouldn’t it?
Yeah, I’m not really all that surprised.
If God made the universe, raising an axe head would be difficult?
Ironically, I can see that many have been saved by Dr Ehrman’s intelligent ideas; from the destructiveness of plunging into a life of faith and hope.
Dr. Ehrman you have a brilliant mind so much so that here I am subscribing to your blog again: not because I support your theses about my Lord and my God.
There is a God, of that I am certain, I cannot show Him to you, I can only reason with you by giving you the correct understanding of the NT. given to me by the Holy Spirit.
There is one thing I appreciate very much about your writings, and that is your research of historical facts and customs, and for that I say thank you.
Something I found myself thinking… *If* an all-knowing God had wanted to inspire a man living thousands of years ago to write an account of His Creation, it’s true that He wouldn’t have communicated a version that involved the Big Bang, the birth of our Sun, the formation of planets, the collision that formed our Moon, and the subsequent evolution of Earth life-forms that culminated in humanity. No one in that era would have understood it.
But there would have been no need – and therefore no reason – for Him to communicate outright *lies*! He could have inspired the man to write something like, “The continents and the oceans, the Sun, Moon, and stars, and all living things, came into being because God willed that it be so.”
Markos is probably right. If you had been a truly dogmatic fundamentalist, interested only in maintaining belief in the dogmas and not caring about whether they were supported by the evidence, you’d probably still be a fundamentalist.
I read this to my girlfriend using James Spader’s voice — she loved it.
Ha!
When “Bart The Movie” is released we need to make sure that Spader plays you. We watched another episode of Blacklist and I kept grinning thinking of watching him do one of your debates.
Actually, you and Dr. Marcos have something in common. He has recorded two (and participated in a third) courses with the Great Courses, although it’s been 10 years or so since his last one. I’ve heard him lecture in person. He’s a brilliant lecturer, filled with humor and personality, but his right wing assumptions betray his living in a bubble of like-minded thinkers.
RobSut
Bart
I noticed that Markos mentions Keener (i.e. evangelical scholars like Craig Keener have amassed considerable evidence for modern miracles that parallel those in the Bible).who wrote a book on Miracles but in his Miracles book he quotes you as one of the scholars who supports his ideas. Keener, “Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament”, states, “Most scholars today working on the subject thus accept the claim that Jesus was a healer and exorcist. The evidence is stronger for this claim than for most other specific historical claims that we could make about Jesus or earliest Christianity. …, pp 23-24 He notes the following scholars: Blackburn, Welch, Green, Dunn, Hultgen, Davies, Eddy and Beilby, Evans, Wilson, EHRMAN, Bultmann, Mansour, Mehio-Sibai, Walsh, Kub, Wilkinson.
I recognize that you agree that it is stated that Jesus was a healer and exorcist but you primarily indicate that historians can’t prove the miracles whereas Keener’s two volume set of 1250 pages apparently “proves” that miracles occurred. I don’t plan on reading Keener’s book but according to Markos, Keener has “amassed” historical evidence. Any familiarity with Keener and his miracle proof claims?
Actually, I don’t agree that Jesus was a healer and an exorcist. I think Keener is a smart and a very hard working fellow, but I completely disagree with him when it comes to miracles (and to many other things!). Still, he’s a good guy….
Dr. Ehrman,
Over the past year, I have also become the wrong kind of fundamentalist — well, my pre-2013 self did retroactively. That’s one of my complaints about fundamentalist theology: since the truth is so plain and so plainly from God, if you don’t accept it, there’s something wrong with you or with your reasoning. We failed to apply correct interpretation; we failed to connect the dots; we never really wanted to see the truth; we wanted to justify our life choices; we somehow overlooked all those passages which would have convicted us; we had just enough book-larnin’ to be dangerous. A lot of the people I know think that all atheists have a deathbed conversion. Thank you for your comments! They always make me more critical both of my own beliefs and of those who appear to claim authority.
You should pity me for the time I’ve spent searching in vain for a signed copy of your latest book;-) How does someone so prolific as a writer not like to write his own name?
You have my full store of pity!
You just have to show up to one of Dr. Ehrman’s speaking engagements – that is how I got mine!
Why are we supposed to interpret things in light of who we are not? As a matter of fact, is that even possible?
“Great pity” – oh boy…
Well, the quote is kind of Freudian slip: Markos defends inerrantism by admitting that the Bible has errors when you interpret it scientifically (i.e. logically). He clumsily gave away the whole debate. Having such defenders inerrantism needs no accusers.
This is where his denialism of Bible contradictions has pushed him. He is sincere, this is his way of making sense of them. For him it is true, but it was dumb to state it, since it is self-refuting. He put a lot of thinking into it, nevertheless it sounds stupid.