Posted on 02/25/2023 7:58:10 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I think one grew up as a Christian and found that like living in a garage does not make you a car, attending Church does not make one a believer.
[[Could two highly intelligent men with two entirely different perspectives possibly help you come to your own personal conclusion concerning the central figure of history?]]
No but the Holy Spirit certainly can
I watched a video of Ehrman on YouTube. He took some digs at how Christians view the Bible, suggesting they aren’t too bright. The problem with believing the Bible according to him is that we don’t know what the original manuscripts said.
He described how our New Testament manuscripts are many copies removed from the originals, and we don’t know what alterations were made between the originals and the manuscripts we have. He implied that exactly one copy got made at each step of the process, which is false.
Multiple copies would have been made of each of the original Gospels. Then the first copies were recopied multiple times etc. The copies that survived came from different branches of the copying process. Because of that, alterations of the original text along the way are easy to spot. They show up in one manuscript but not any of the others.
I’ve enjoyed Hugh Ross’ ministry for decades.
Ehrman gives courses on Christianity as part of the Great Courses program.
I always wondered who he was. Now I know.
And it is no surprise that the 'Great Courses program' would have the Christianity module 'taught' by a Christ denying atheist.
Which is why I never subscribed or purchased their products
I would recommend that you read other scholarly rebuttals to Bart Ehrman, starting here:
Regarding multiple copies of manuscripts, The New Testament Scholar NT Wright has this response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NQYOjRYQG8
Hugh Ross, in my opinion, is the greatest scientist who has ever lived, because he has reconciled science and the Bible, which no one else has accomplished as fully.
I have known him personally for forty-five years and cannot speak highly enough about his character.
Here are three links for those interested in learning more:
Books by Hugh Ross--about twenty now
Reasons to Believe's website
Paradoxes in Scripture, Hugh's Sunday School class, since c. 1980
Bookmark
Me too. I've read many of his books and the books of others from RTB, many of their articles, listened to their podcasts, and heard a couple of them speak in person (Ross and Rana).
Though admittedly, my friends and I have joked a few times about Ross' monotone. LOL
The ‘Jesus Papyrus’, by Carsten Peter Thiede, discussed evidence that the Gospel of Mark was in existence prior to 50 AD. Contrary to Ehrmann’s thesis that the Gospels weren’t written until the third century AD. I.e., made up fairy tells, as opposed to what they were in reality - first hand witnesses (and the Word of God).
We attended the same church, and hands down he is the worst singer I've ever heard who didn't care and sang with gusto anyway.
He is on the autism spectrum, and he credits his wife Kathy for enabling him to speak at all. Originally, he didn't even look at his audience while speaking. Kathy emphasized that and Hugh tried hard. But when he asked her how he had done, she said, "Fine. But you looked at the same man for the whole two hours!"
He objects to too much suffering in this world--the same malady that plagued Darwin. Wait until he finds out what awaits him....
Yes. Quite monotone.
Almost a stereotype of a scientist.
If one applied Ehrmans criteria to all historical documents, and many,many, contemporaneous documents, there would very little communication at all. Is Ehrman a fabrication? Did he use AI to come to his beliefs?
A year or so ago there was an article about new results from the Dead Sea scrolls, with the title being something like “Early Dead Sea Manuscripts show errors in the N.T.”
I don’t recall exactly what they were, but they were very minor.
“And Jesus gathered the disciples....” vs.
“And Jesus gathered his disciples...”. (I just made that sentence up - but it COULD be in the Bible!)
Thinking about it now, I wonder if it may be a translation error on our part?
My dad knew a great scientist (one of the inventors of radar) who was also a strong Christian. My dad (Christian) asked him how he was able to reconcile the science with God.
“The more I learn about how the earth works - science, it only reinforces the idea of a Creator God.”
BTW - the early scientists were motivated by their belief in a creator. The science was to help them understand not only the creation, but God the creator.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.