Bart Ehrman: Expert, Skeptic, Scholar

If you have read at least a few of my posts, chances are you can identify who Bart Ehrman is. He is a famous agnostic New Testament scholar. Being one of the leading critics of Christianity in the world today, of course I've debated many of his claims (and welcomed his conclusions in favor of supporting Christianity). But I want to express that I am not out to attack Ehrman, he's just the best skeptical scholar I can get.

I read his Did Jesus Exist? about two years ago, when looking for strong ammo to prove Jesus was a real person. It might have been when I came across these words for the first time I realized how confident he is. I as a Christian of course knew no one should attack him personally (even though I was a tad bit shaken; I'm not anymore), and as a reader in general I was aware everyone should check and see if what they claim will be able to stand up to scrutiny. 

"I sometimes get asked, usually by supporters, why I do not make a practice of responding to scholars and bloggers who criticize my work and attack me personally. ... For another thing, I suppose at the end of the day I simply trust human intelligence. Anyone should be able to see whether a point of view is plausible or absurd, whether a historical claim has merit or is pure fantasy driven by an ideological or theological desire for a certain set of answers to be right." (1)   

Remembering that quote, I decided I should try to make my blog one he would consider worth reading. (He probably never will, but still, respect and impartiality to a subject should be in my work.) Elsewhere he had an example that I should try to imitate:

"For obvious reasons, these kinds of audiences tend to be less interested in hearing what I have to say than in seeing how a scholar of their own theological persuasion can respond to and refute my views. I understand that and actually enjoy these venues: the debates tend to be lively, and the audiences are almost always receptive and gracious, even if they think I'm a dangerous spokesperson for the dark side." (2) 

Really, spiritually speaking no one should look at Ehrman as someone from the "dark side" any more than anyone who is rude to us! Ehrman is, spiritually, an unbelieving sinner. That means he's our fellow human being, even to believers. I've appreciated that he has written "Jesus's," instead of just "Jesus'" when making His name possessive. If something belongs to Jesus, it is pronounced Jesus-is, not simply Jesus. (Maybe Christians who write it the latter way do so because it's just been adopted as special for the God of the world's largest religion. I don't know, but I try to use "Jesus's.") I acknowledged Bart Ehrman at the end of my original blog project on Mark being the eyewitness testimony of Peter. I even got to cite Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a Christian apologetics book, on his high intelligence. 

On the back of Did Jesus Exist? was cited Salon.com, a cite for culture and politics, saying "Bart Ehrman's career is a testament to the fact that no one can slice and dice a belief system more surgically than someone who grew up inside it." I agree that converts (he was at least going through the motions of being Christian) can often make the biggest splash. However, just because someone converted doesn't prove a side. I created the title "battle of the converts" to capture two people of different beliefs trying to back up their side with an impartial conversion. J. Warner Wallace, former atheist and cold-case homicide detective, author of Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels and source interviewed on the resurrection for Lee Strobel's The Case for Miracles(3), became a Christian because he could tell that the Gospels matched eyewitness testimonies that would stand up in court. His conclusion echoed Simon Greenleaf, who was another unbeliever. Greenleaf was a founder for Harvard Law School, and realized this:

"There is enough of discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them, and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction, as the events actually occurred." (4)

Ironically, these converts counter Ehrman's favored claim that the Gospels have so many contradictions they cannot be true. Even if all his examples are errors (there are many, and I don't believe any are), historical credibility would still be significant if Wallace and Greenleaf can prove their side should persuade others, too(5).  

Ehrman and I both hope the truth (or at least what we believe is true) will win out. So onto the evidence, reader! For a single post attempting to prove a powerful pro-Christian claim that considers things Ehrman has written, I suggest "My Case Against the True Lost Gospel of Peter (and refutations)."

Citations:

1. Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (HarperOne: 2012), 142.

2. Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperOne: 2014), 129.

3. Lee Strobel, The Case for Miracles: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Supernatural (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 2018), 189-210.

4. Simon Greenleaf, The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence (Kregel: Grand Rapids, MI. 1995), 34.

5. For the contrast between Wallace and Ehrman and a quick discussion on resolving Gospel difficulties, see Rice Broocks, Man Myth Messiah: Answering History's Greatest Question (Thomas Nelson: Nashville, TN. 2016), 61-63.