Toto

From XKV8R blog

Youtube videos of the debate.

ApostateAbe

Worth viewing. That opening dialogue at 4:03 is a joke that Ehrman uses in almost every debate, explicitly self-deprecating, but implicitly bringing awareness to the audience's own bias.

Meatros

Is this the debate where they each answer something like 6 questions?

Meatros

A lot of the professional debaters seem to have 'an opening line'. Dinesh D'Suza (sp?), for example, has one that involves not wearing pants and being behind a podium.

Toto

In Part 5, Eharman says that there are no reliable sources for Jesus outside the gospels, and the gospels are unreliable. Christians were converted by stories, and those stories became unreliable in the retelling. It will be interesting to see how he can claim that there is enough evidence to say that Jesus existed.

Steven Carr

Justin declares that he was converted by listening to somebody telling him about the amazing prophets and they way that they had made known Christ.
‘They also are worthy of belief because of the miracles which they performed, for they exalted God, the Father and Creator of all things, and made known Christ, His Son, who was sent by Him.’

And when scolded by somebody who claimed that the Messiah had not been born, Justin retorts ‘”My friend,” I replied, “I pardon you, and may the Lord forgive you, for you don’t know what you say; you have been instructed by teachers who are ignorant of the meaning of the Scriptures, and, like a fortune-teller, you blurt out whatever comes into your mind. If you will consent to hear our account of Him, how we have not been deceived by false teachings, and how we will not cease to profess our faith in Him


So where was the historical Jesus? Christians were converted by listening to accounts of miracle-working prophets who made Christ known, and defended their belief by claiming Jesus was in the Scriptures.

JonA

I think Ehrman could have done better.

I am a little saddened by the approach he took in this debate: too much emotion and not enough give in the give-and-take.

Had he been more open to admitting his views on the larger matters of reliability, he would have closed the backdoor Evans utilized in 'talking past' Ehrman and the points he made.

Jon

jgoodguy

That will be interesting. However keep in mind that a 51% probability that a fellow named Jesus existed and had next to nothing to do with Gentile Christianity is greater than the 49% he did not. If true, or something like that argument is made, then it is probable that a HJ existed but who cares.

Toto

Debates are performance art. If you don't put some emotion into it, the audience will get bored and tune out. And there is not enough time to get into any subtle argument.

I don't know what kind of give and take would be possible. Both of them agreed that there were inconsistencies and improbabilities in the Bible. Ehrman's point was once you admit this, how do you know that anything is realiable? Evans engaged in cognitive dissonance - all this investigation merely increases my faith. None of these errors are important.

JonA

Ehrman focused too much on the many discrepancies without mentioning the commonalities, the points shared. Evans made an argument that the gospels can be relied upon for a general outline of Jesus' life; from reading Ehrman's work, I have gathered that he feels likewise. Had Ehrman admitted to this point when discussing why he felt certain details to be unreliable, Evans could not have mentioned the point himself and sidestepped the issues that Ehrman raised regarding the details.

Jon